Bloody Monday

Finally ETB's full time scedule kicking in this week: Monday residency at Friends, tues nite opening for Blackberry Smoke a Antone's, Friday early set at Friends (7:30) and Saturday our debut at Saxon Pub, blowing the doors off at midnite.

Roll into Friends to load in on Monday and meet Eric on the sidewalk. He shows me his thumb and forefinger on his fret hand. Both covered in a layer of gauze, crazy glue and caked blood. Apprently he was cleaning out his guitar toolbox and grabbed a fresh new razor blade before realizing what it was, until it had already deeply cut into the inside nail of the finger and left a dime-sized flap hanging from the thumb.

Holy shit. "We'll see how long this lasts..." he says motioning to the gauze. It didn't last long.

Began first set and looked like was going to be a good night crowd (and money) wise. But began clearing out 3rd song in. Shit. The crowdwalk livened things up a bit but after 90 minutes the crowd had died and Eric's cuts had reopened. He called break and taped them up again. By beginning of second set things had changed. People started filing in and Eric's finger was now bleeding freely.

Eric is a fuckin trooper. Utmost respect. We played almost our entire 4-hour slot to a packed house. He ruined the strings on 3 guitars from blood caking to the strings. People were going nuts and emptying their wallets into the tip jar. It was fucking amazing! Well, we wanted to make these Mondays an event, and mission accomplished.

Last night at Antone's was great as well, but crowd kinda subdued. By now Eric had stitches in his finger courtesy an off duty ER doc friend of a friend in said friend's kitchen. He of course sent pics as well as video. Not for the faint of heart.

We played a short 45 if that set, feels good being able to put 4 hours worth of energy into that short a time. Just gettin warmed up and already done. Nice! My love affair with the Antone's house Dietz 2x15 only grows. Used it solo due to lack of space onstage. Goddam it sounds amazing. Eric: "Well, it was Tommy Shannon's when he played with SRV, so it's got some mojo." No shit. Tempted to swap the EV's from Mergilli's replica to my real-deal backup and see how it sounds. May do that today after I change strings.

In other news the MER deal is off for now due to lack of funds. Could still happen, but at the very least I know how much duplication is, and my copies of 'Ocean of Stars' were selling on the road. A follow up with a real drummer would be nice, but reprinting OoS right now would be a financial stretch. A band would be awesome but not until I'm back in town, driving into Austin is a geographic and financial hurdle. Will research labels and pitch OoS re-issue/follow up to a couple and see what happens.

Still waiting for word back from DR. About to use my last set of strings.